The Mystery of Starbuck

The Mystery of Starbuck

The previews for the Battlestar Galactica promised that everything would be revealed. Apparently everything didn't include anything about Kara Thrace.

One of the biggest mysteries going into the finale was about Starbuck. At the end of season 3, she died and miraculously returned, having been to Earth. Then she found her Viper and her own body dead on Earth, prompting the famous question What am I? Then we learned that as a child, her absentee father taught her to play All Along the Watchtower on the piano. After the finale, we still don't know any more about these mysteries than we did before.

Whether you liked the ending of Battlestar Galactica or not, it's undeniable that Starbuck's conclusion left a lot of questions unanswered. As if not answering any of those questions wasn't bad enough, the finale added one more level of mystery when Starbuck seemingly vanished into thin air while talking to Lee in her final scene.

The popular theory among fans to explain all of this is that Starbuck was an angel. Finding a factual basis for this theory within the context of the show is nearly impossible, though the sudden disappearance, her dead body, and the prominence of God and religion in the finale would certainly lend some credibility to this idea.

My problem with the angel theory is that, neat as it is, it doesn't explain anything. Let's assume that Starbuck is an angel, or that she became one after crashed and died on the fake Earth. That would mean that she was an angel for all of season 4, and that in the world of Battlestar Galactica, angels are corporeal and don't know they're angels.

This doesn't quite fit with the angels we know of on Battlestar Galactica, namely Head Six and Head Baltar. The series finale did reveal that they were angels helping to guide Baltar and Caprica Six to their destinies. For the most part, these angels only revealed themselves to one person, though in the finale they both appeared to both Baltar and Caprica Six.

However, those angels were not representations of dead people, nor were they corporeal, nor were they unaware of their angel status. If Starbuck really is an angel as some fans seem to believe, what kind of angel is she?

Comments

In my opinion (hence I'm stating my opinion but I know it is right :P) I think that Kara was indeed an angel. As with many things in this show they left us clues earlier in this season and even as far back as season 2. The in depth thought put into the show is astounding. That is why she disappeared on NEW EARTH when she did. YES,Kara did die when her plane blew up but a "higher power" manifested her spirit and soul inside a corporeal body so she could help the fleet find the colonial frequency to find the nuked earth and then learn the notes to the song (with the help of Hera of course) which would give them the coordinates for the final jump home to NEW EARTH.
Her burning up in the viper and exploding in a ball of fire is like a phoenix dying in fire and being reborn anew (they also talk about the phoenix in the episode when they built the blackbird and the title of the episode is flight of the phoenix (season 2, episode 9) and who takes makes the maiden flight in the plane; none other than Starbuck :O dundundun lol and it is lee who flies the final flight of the blackbird symbolizing Starbuck's leadership will be passed onto lee specifically that fateful day on the hill)
In the episode when Kara takes the Demetrius to find Earth and they find and take Leoben on their ship he says, "I told you when I first came aboard this ship that you had changed. I look at you now. I don't see Kara Thrace. I see an angel blazing with the light of God, an angel eager to lead her people home". Once she lead the fleet home her destiny complete her soul could finally ascend and she could go to heaven.
Finally having an Epiphany and realizing ALL OF THIS at that moment on the hill on NEW EARTH (look at that scene again) she told Lee goodbye (your going to like it here,something like that) and then disappeared. This falls under the broad term of angel because she was a messenger of God given the purpose to lead them home. Oh and to answer your last question some angels can be seen only by select people (Baltar and Six) and sometimes angels can take corporeal bodies. I think what they are trying to say is that an angel can be anyone and anywhere in everyday life, and that they are those people who make the greatest sacrifices for others (ie the last episode). I think that is about good so ill stop rambling now lol :)

I don't have anything to prove this but I think Starbuck was a cylon. She would not be one of the 12 because the final five did not know about her, but what if she and her parents had reached earth even before them with the same purpose of protecting human beings. In this case the others wouldn't have been informed that they were there; she would also have been able to download when she died in earth (also assuming she had left something behind to do this just in case...). Her father's song would also make a whole lot more of sense because she would be a cylon and therefore know it. This would also take us to the conclusion that the old cylons unconciously knew about another habitable planet but couldn't reach it in time before their own attack.
At the end, I think starbuck stayed with Sam and went into the sun, there is nothing that tells us she didn't. Later, she was some kind of angel or imaginative figure when on earth with Lee and his father.
I know this is a long shot, but I have trouble convincing myself of the whole real flesh and blood angel theory.

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